


falling backwards

by syncwhispers



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Engagement Rings, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Travel, five pretending to be klaus' kid bc hes a lil shit, fucking superb you funky little lesbian, i mean the aesthetic rocks, no one has phones and vanya uses a typewriter hello?, real talk why is the tech in tua so selective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 14:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17900123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syncwhispers/pseuds/syncwhispers
Summary: Turns out, being monumentally fucked-up by time travel is a fantastic basis for quality sibling bonding time.





	falling backwards

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Tiếng Việt available: [ngược dốc thời gian](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18008480) by [thegirl_gcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirl_gcat/pseuds/thegirl_gcat)



> i just want klaus and five to be friends please those three frames where klaus instinctively held his arm out in front of five when diego n luther were fighting n being nutheads? my heart wow. (lowkey when there's no fandom discord so you gotta actually write your hcs out as fics. no but seriously, if there's a fandom discord hmu)
> 
> i went on an impulsive run and then wrote this at 6 a.m. which probably wasn't the best idea sue me

 

Klaus sips on pomegranate-red lips. Tastes twelve.

 

* * *

 

Cockroaches swarm over the bodies. Five and the graveyard are magnets. Somehow, he pulls away.

 

* * *

 

Dave is hot. Not, like, in the physical sense (well, yeah, that too, on a scale of lighter to the surface of the freakin’ sun, Dave is the sun), but he burns like he has a fever. Klaus notices this dragging his hand lazily over Dave’s bare skin, watching the goosebumps that rise from the trail of his fingers.

Dave catches Klaus’ hand and presses his fingers to his lips. Klaus can feel the warm, gentle curve of his smile. “You’re cold.”

Klaus shifts closer to him with a hum. His brain’s moving too slow for any more of a verbal response, that’s a first. It’s a nice morning. Quiet. Sunlight is a square that blankets his back, shines in Dave’s eyes, and warms the sheets. Glancing up, Dave’s lashes are dark and his eyes turn the color of a glass of whiskey lifted in afternoon sunlight. The corners crinkle when Klaus breathes, “You’re beautiful.”

He wants forever with him.

 

* * *

 

Five finds Delores in the remains of a department store. She doesn’t start talking to him until about a month later when he stumbles upon a beautiful refuge: A half-collapsed library. There’s torn picture books, singed poems, puddles of ash on the floor. Afternoon sunlight slants in shafts, like a pretty painting of a colosseum, all dust and dark and hurt. Five wanders through it. Dimly, he wonders if he should be focusing more on food right now, but the twist in his gut knows that he isn’t getting back until fuck-knows-when. Might as well pick up some reading material.

“The comics.”

Five startles. Dolores is looking at him. She’s right, dad’s dream has to end somewhere, doesn’t it? Five tries to imagine the seven of them as malfunctioning twenty-year-olds, fighting crime in a comic run that quickly drops its PG rating with all the fucks Diego’s going to integrate into his vernacular with his newfound adulthood. Five laughs. It echos. He sobers quickly.

Five’s footsteps are loud in the aisles. He reaches out to brush against the final, yellowed issue when he reaches the end. He lingers on their faces, the ridiculous masks. Five wants to find out what the in-story explanation for his disappearance is, if there even is one. But flipping through the pages is too final, too real. He’s still clinging to some vestige of disbelief as a safety net. Five moves on.

He finds a book.

 

* * *

 

Dave’s been here for a while. Long enough for the ticking of a clock to melt into rattling gunfire if he’s in his head for too long. Klaus, though, he’s not exactly the epitome of The Epic American Soldier. He hasn’t done a sit-up for a very very long time. The last gun he held was a water gun that made Five actually hiss, like a prissy little kitty. That was hilarious, Klaus needs to do it again.

“Lower,” Dave breathes by his ear. This is every hot tutor fantasy Klaus’ ever had, but a million times better. Klaus tells Dave so, and his laugh’s like syrup. Klaus wants to bottle it up. Get drunk on it --him-- every night. “There. Perfect.”

Klaus pulls the trigger.

It’s not a euphemism, unfortunately.

 

* * *

 

Vanya mentions him in passing. The page Five’s gripping tears.

 

* * *

 

Klaus misses moments he’s never had.

He likes this place better the Academy, and it’s becoming easier and easier to admit. Doesn’t matter that his family isn’t here, doesn’t matter what they could’ve been, because Dave’s here and that's what matters. Klaus burns with what they can be, what they _will_ be. The metallic undercurrent of dad’s harsh has no hold. Here, Klaus can breathe.

 

* * *

 

This is a slow ache, cruel in its gentleness. Poison in reverse. Five stares up at the stars and traces constellations with his finger. The stars are bright now that humankind's footprints are gone. Vanya would like this clarity, she’s always harbored a fascination for beauty, plain and simple-- Donizetti's violin, Orion dashing through the winter sky, words like gold.

 

* * *

 

“What’re you going to do after?” Charlie asks.

Klaus runs a hand through his hair and shrugs. Gah. Planning, future, ew. All Klaus knows is that wherever he goes, he’s dragging Dave with him in tow. The masked psychos were sharing one suitcase, Klaus can make it happen.

Dave nudges his foot under the table. A little, hey. Klaus shakes his thoughts and grins.

“You ever think about how nothing’s gonna be different when we go back, ‘cept us?” Charlie continues.

“Sure,” Dave says. “Out here everyone knows knows you. There’s an understanding, a…”

“Comradeship?”

“Yeah. One that’s pretty hard to replicate.” To Klaus, “Hey, you’ve got a…” He wipes a speck off of Klaus’ cheek with a napkin.

“Thanks.”

Klaus places it. This feeling of nostalgia for a past he’s never had. It’s the sharpness of the old man’s huge books underneath his fingers, the sense of wonder and mystery about the little locked door in his room, about summers he’s never been, gum in classrooms, rickety desks.

But he has no memories for these missing parts, just the feeling. Fate’s taunt of carefree and meadows and growing up, with just the faintest hint of having been there before. Deja vu and nostalgia at their finest.

“You okay?” Dave asks, and he’s looking at Klaus with a smile sweeter than a million times could’ve ever prepared him for.

“Yeah, you know,” Klaus waves his hand around. “Just thinking.”

 

* * *

 

Five closes the book. He defines this hurt as _wanting_ , only, it’s more of _needing_. Needing it back. Even if it was never his to begin with.

 

* * *

 

Klaus felt it sometimes, back when he was a kid, reading about fathers. Seeing one out on the street, letting his daughter sit on his shoulders with a fond smile. But it’s never been as striking, as intense as it is in this moment. Right now. With him.

“When this is over,” Klaus tells him. “You’re coming with.”

“To the future?”

Klaus intertwines their fingers. “Doesn’t have to be. As long as it’s ours.”

 

* * *

 

Time. He’s missing so much _time_. There are so many of Vanya’s scribbled bursts of poetic inspiration that he’ll never find on half-crumpled napkins, so many of Ben’s hugs he’ll never have when the headaches snowball into a jackhammer. In this universe where everybody’s nothing, all that makes someone something is the memories they make. And here Five stands in a big, empty planet devoid of seven billion, just a speck of nothing swallowed by a bigger circle of nothing.

He’s not suicidal, but he’s on a fucking fishing boat against a tsunami. Let him stop rowing.

“Pussy,” Delores says. “I’m sick of your moping.”

Five curls his fingers into a fist. He closes his eyes and he tries. God, he tries.

 

* * *

 

Dave dies. Klaus goes back.

 

* * *

 

Klaus puts on a gray shirt. He looks defeated as he stands. There’s a near-unbearable weight on his shoulders, Five can tell.

“Klaus, wait,” Five says. His mind’s already tripping over itself, without the suitcase he’ll need a new plan, but just for a second-- “I’m sorry.”

Klaus rubs his face. He doesn’t stop moving, rocking back and forth on his feet, sniffing. He nods.

“Aspirin helps.”

Klaus shakes his head and leaves.

 

* * *

 

Klaus sobs from the floor. “Dave, _Dave_.”

 

* * *

 

The clock resets.

 

* * *

 

The apocalypse is done. Over. Canceled, like all of Netflix’s good shows. Done.

Klaus would be doing more bottle-popping and victory dancing if he didn’t feel like ants were crawling over his skin. Being sober sucks. Being sober while you’re still recovering from hopscotching through time sucks even more. Five raises an eyebrow when Klaus walks in. He’s sipping something bright green, with one of those adorable umbrellas that Klaus would sell his soul for. He looks like a smug asshole.

“And you look like shit,” Five says.

“Nng. Thanks.” Klaus sits and glares half-heartedly at the blender. Tempting.

“Why not,” Five says into empty air, and dumps the contents down the drain.

Klaus blinks and wonders if he missed something, or if Five’s just talking to himself. There’s the mannequin Klaus found in the back of the van sitting on the counter, smiling eerily into nothing. Creepy.

Five hands Klaus a glass filled with water and a singular Kool-Aid stick.

“Your thoughtfulness heals my heart, brother.”

“It was Dolores’s idea. Don’t mention it.”

“Dolores?” Klaus swirls the stick and watches the water turn red. “Oh, Dolores. Where….”

Five points at the mannequin, and hey, wait a fucking second.

“Wait, seriously?” Ben asks.

“Um,” Klaus says. And there’s no real way to vocalize ‘Wait, I thought you actually met someone in the future. Turns out you’re just anthropomorphizing a combination of your self-flagellating rhetoric birthed from thirty years of being unable to do the impossible plus all of dad’s shit, which led to you Pygmalioning yourself a girlfriend?’, so he doesn’t.  
  
“Oh my fucking god,” Klaus turns and whispers to Ben. “I thought he just liked the outfit but didn’t want to abandon his salty old man vest yet. Dolores is the mannequin.”

“Right?”

Five twirls his squiggly straw. “I can hear you.”

“Right, right,” Klaus watches the Kool-Aid stick dissolve. “Can you… try something?”

Five looks at Dolores, then back at Klaus, eyebrow raised, “Why Klaus, I would love to play dress-up with you.”

 

* * *

“Wow,” Five says. “That was stupid, even for you.”

“Maybe we should try less 'you' statements. More 'I' statements, you know?” Klaus slumps down on the couch. “Like, ‘Wow, that’s impossible. Even for me.’ It’s the first step to self-help.”

Five _ha_ ’s into the coffee he wheedled out of Klaus before he agreed to anything, “I don’t need self-help.”

“You talk to a mannequin,” Klaus blurts. He has a visible ‘oh shit’ moment, but Five just shrugs.

“How did you not just combust from hypocrisy?” Five asks. “You talk to the dead.”

Klaus blows out a breath and waves his hand around.

Five chugs the rest of the coffee, “So yeah, that’s a no. I can’t somehow reverse your body or your mind back to peak sobriety. You’ll have to wait it out, Klaus.”

“Why could I do the old man but not the literal love of my life?”

“Because you unconsciously want to be at your best when you meet them again?”

“Him. Dave. Fuck my subconscious. Fuck it with a stick.”

“No thanks,” Five says. “I can help on one front though.”

Klaus lifts his face. His eyes are red-rimmed.

Five cringes a little but forces the words out. This is his _brother_. Klaus needs _help_. He can do this. “I wasn’t kidding about dress-up.”

 

* * *

 

Five stuffs Dolores in a bag and scribbles something on a napkin, for when Diego wakes up--

“Wait, why is Diego napping on the floor? In a puddle of broken glass?”

Five shrugs.

“Are you sure you’re not exercising your homicidal tendencies by luring me to the mall and then viciously dissecting me?”

Five shrugs again.

“Also, why does no one have phones. Seriously.”

Five puts his pen down. “You sold yours. Diego has a walkie-talkie. I’m fifty-eight. Luther was on the moon for four years, someone probably takes Allison’s calls for her, and Vanya’s is in her apartment.”

“This lack of communication will be our downfall.”

“Yep.”

 

* * *

 

Klaus spends the car ride twitching, rubbing his thumb over his knuckles. It isn’t until Five flips off the asshole behind him and parks his van that Klaus looks up.

“This isn’t the mall,” Klaus says. “Oh my god, you are murdering me. I haven’t said goodbye to Diego yet! What’s in the bag?”

Five rolls his eyes, “A machete. Two grenades. A chainsaw to hack the body into pieces, and some garbage bags.”

“That’s excessive. Really?”

“No, it’s just Dolores, and she’s staying in the car for now.” Five pats Klaus’s jittering knee. “C’mon. Out.”

Klaus sighs and unbuckles his seat belt. “This is an engagement ring shop. Are you finally, Beyonce voice, putting a ring on it? Congrats.”

Five drags him inside. “No. Dolores and I are breaking up. Not me. _You_ are.”

Klaus’s face as the realization dawns is a precious thing. He starts babbling instantly, “Wait, wait a second. I have, like, eight dollars in my bank account, five, wait, ha, five, of which I used to buy you coffee. Do ghosts even wear rings? Can they? I mean, maybe. Ben’s not naked, he actually changes outfits, which is so weird, now that I think about it. I got a shave from a ghost. And that ghost had a hat, and--”

Five takes Klaus’s shaking hand in his own. “Klaus. _Klaus_. Breathe.”

He takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly.

“Do you want this?”

Klaus’s gaze sharpens somewhere past Five’s shoulder. Quietly, he says, “Yeah, I... I do.” He coughs wetly, and adds hastily, “Also, Allison’s gonna be pissed, and that’ll be funny.”

Five pats his palm, “Glad you’re proposing to the love of your life because of the face Allison’s going to make when you tell her you went ring-shopping with _Five_.”

Klaus laughs and rubs his eyes, “Yep. But the cost…”

“Y’all may have spent your inheritance,” Five says. “I still have mine.”

“Thanks,” Klaus says, head bowed. He meets Five’s eyes. “Thank you. _Thank you_. Seriously. I know you’re a little prick at times, but you’re my brother. I love you. And if you ever need help, I’m here for you.”

“Gross,” Five says because otherwise, he might cry a little. “Let’s go inside.”

 

* * *

 

There’s a girl admiring rings with her friend, and a couple that is so obscenely in love pre-Dave Klaus would’ve fake gagged to high heaven. Five drags Klaus over to the counter and beams at the woman at the register. Five is grinning his dumb, adorable, ‘I’m a sweet little baby who didn’t nearly assassinate JFK’ smile at the lady -- Wanda, says her name tag-- which means that Klaus is probably in trouble.

“Hi,” Wanda smiles, one social norm away from making audible cooing noises. “What can I do for you today?”

“My dad’s proposing to his boyfriend,” Five says.

“You did  _not_ just,” Klaus hisses.

Ben sniggers.

Wanda smiles, cocking her head a little. “And your name is…”

Alright, well, Klaus wasn't excepting Five to give Wanda the whole spiel about why he looks thirteen and Klaus looks old enough to be his dad, but--

Five elbows him.

Klaus yelps. “Oh. Yes. I'm Klaus.”

“Klaus, nice to meet you. Do you have any styles in mind?”

Five looks at the display case, it's eye-level for him. Klaus looks down at the sea of rose-gold, smug in his height. 

He points at a silver ring. “What’s that one?” 

Wanda reaches into the display case and pulls it out and hands it to Klaus to examine. “Infinity band,” she says. “The cut’s round.”

“Do you have one with more of twist?”

Wanda leads them to another case. Ben pauses to stare over another customer’s shoulder.

“How’s this?” Wanda asks, and Klaus turns it over in his hands.

The ring is rose, the band made of dramatic twists, and small diamond sitting snugly on top. Klaus clears his throat. “This is it.”

Five smacks his leg. “I can’t see.”

Klaus lets him swipe his dirty paws over it.

“It’s pretty.”

“Damn right it is.”

Ben floats over, “Thought Klaus was going to go for a 99 cent store emo skull ring, but even I can be wrong.”

Klaus smacks him. Or tries to.

Wanda smiles at him, “Can I get the finger size?”

Klaus resists the urge to make a sex joke about the acquirement of the knowledge, because Wanda thinks Five is thirteen, and that would make him a very disappointing father indeed.

 

* * *

 

Allison scribbles furiously on her notepad before she throws it onto the table halfway in favor of smacking Klaus’s shoulder and pulling him into a hug.

 

* * *

 

Dave’s beautiful. He’s kind and brilliant and his eyes are the exact level of gorgeous prophesied by a million pop songs. The day at the bar when they first kissed, his lips had been crazy red from him licking them in all the heat. Klaus had thought of pomegranates and Persephone’s mouth red with juice. Then he realized _he_ was the Persephone in the equation, or maybe they both were. She ate six seeds in exchange for six months in the Underworld, Klaus would eat the whole damn fruit for Dave.

 

* * *

 

Klaus’s fists glow blue, and Five meets Dave.

 


End file.
